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Dish of saucer shape with rounded sides, the base with the six-character mark of Zhengde. On the interior, painted in green enamel on the biscuit against a white glazed ground, an incised design of a five-clawed dragon prancing on its forelegs amidst clouds. The exterior with two dragons in profile, pursuing each other.
This design appears both on dishes and bowls and the attractive combination of green against white dates from the Chenghua reign (1465-1487). As the dragon is a creature of the sky it is usually depicted amidst clouds as on this dish. In spring the dragon (lung) is said to ascend to the sky to generate the rains that cause nature to renew itself. The details of the dragon and the clouds were incised in the leather-hard clay, covered with a wax and so reserved against the white glaze. The biscuit was then painted with a deep green enamel. On a Hongzhi-marked dish in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the design has not been covered with the enamel, showing the buff-coloured biscuit. This might have been done intentionally for a decorative effect. Similar dishes and bowls can be found in several western collections including a Hongzhi-marked dish and three Zhengde-marked ones in the British Museum.
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